Labor & Employment Law

Iowa Labor 2010: Staying Home this Election Not an Option

By admin

Michael Uehlein, Field Communications director for the Iowa Federation of Labor, sent a report on the 54th Iowa AFL-CIO Convention.

Hundreds of excited and energized union members from around the state gathered in Altoona last week to discuss the future of the union movement in Iowa. Iowa AFL-CIO President Ken Sagar took the opportunity to talk about the upcoming gubernatorial election.

Terry Branstad is not our friend. His policies are an extreme insult to the goals and aspirations of the working people in this country.

Rep. Leonard Boswell (D) opened the convention by informing the crowd of a recently passed jobs bill. Voted on only the day before and immediately signed by President Obama, the bill will send $96 million to Iowa to save the jobs of more than 3,000 firefighters and teachers from across the state. Boswell also spoke of his fight for working families across Iowa.

We can?t go back to the time when your insurance company can drop you while you?re in the hospital.

Democratic Senate nominee Roxanne Conlin spoke about her experience fighting for workers across the state. Drawing sharp contrast with her opponent, longtime Sen. Chuck Grassley, she informed the crowd of the countless anti-worker votes Grassley has made over the years.

He voted to give $700 billion?no strings attached?to bail out Wall Street giants. What was he thinking? He voted to ship American jobs overseas. What was he thinking? He helped create a $1.3 billion annual deficit for the U.S. government. What was he thinking?

The audience also heard from Gov. Chet Culver, who spoke of how his administration has brought jobs to the state.

We?ve been working with IBM, Microsoft and Google to bring jobs here. Forbes has even named Des Moines the number one city in the country to get a job.

The message these speakers brought home to all of us by the close of the convention on Friday was clear: Staying home this fall is not an option. To keep this state acting on behalf of working people, we must work to elect candidates that fight on our behalf and listen to our concerns.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 23, 2010 (boomark / email).